CSC152 2005F, Class 1: About the Course

Admin:
* No office hours today (unless you really need them)
* No homework for Monday

Overview:
* Subject matter(s) of the course
* Some background questions
* Administrative issues

Subject Matter
* Traditional subject matter of CS2: Algorithms and Data Structures
  * We did algorithms in 151, so why are we doing them again?
    * Algorithms provide instructions for solving problems
    * We need to work on your algorithm-writing skills
    * Different approaches
      * Patterns of algorithm writing
        * Divide and conquer
	* Greed
	* Dynamic programming
      * Famous algorithms
        * Searching
	* Sorting
	* And more (I hope)
      * Means of analyzing algorithms
        * Efficiency: 
	  * Speed of computing result
	  * Of expression (amount of code used)
	  * Resource use (memory)
	* Correctness
	  * Proof!
	  * Carefully thought out test suites
  * Data structure: Mechanism for organizing information
    * List and Vector
      * Both collect elements in a sequence
      * Vectors permit you to efficiently reference elements by position
      * Lists grow efficiently; vectors do not
* Nowadays: Algorithms and Abstract Data Types
  * Start with *what operations we want to do on the data*
  * Typical approach: List functions wanted and then figure out one or more data structures that support those functions
  * PAMI for ADTs
    * Purpose (e.g. Lists group data so that they can be accessed in sequence)
    * Applications (Lists are good for ...)
    * Methods, the functions we want the ADT to provide (cons, car, cdr, empty? nil)
    * Implementation, how we get those functions implemented efficiently USING A DATA STRUCTURE

* Subject 2 (3? 4?): Object-Oriented Programming
  * Not functional programming
  * Functional programming involves defining and combining functions
    * Also anonymous functions, higher-order functions, symbols as first-class data, etc.
    * Anonymous: (map (lambda (x) (* 2 x) (list 1 2 3)))
    * Higher-order: Create/return procedures as values ; Take procedures as params
  * Object-oriented programming involves defining and combining objects 
    * Object: Collection of data and functions on those data
    * Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Inheritance

* Subject 3 (or whatever): Java Programming
  * Good langauge for doing this stuff
  * Useful for upper level classes
  * Students seem to want to learn the language